Soccer hooligans in disguise

Day 19 – May 22

Sometimes as a guest teacher you’re just always out of the loop. In Japan, being there for three years, I wasn’t even a guest teacher but there were always surprise changes in the schedule and events popped on me without me knowing in advance.

Today was the same at Mangi Sabas. I taught my first class and then did some prep and waited for my second class, which was to start after break. As I popped my head out to see if the students were heading back to class after the break, I saw instead a buzz of activity in the schoolyard. Students were cleaning, fetching water, getting wood, etc. I asked a teacher standing there what was going on and she told me that they were doing the end of day chores because there was a soccer match in the afternoon.

“Today?”

“Yes.”

“So there are no classes for the rest of the day?”

“That’s right, no classes.”

“I see.”

That’s pretty much how the conversation went. Not much I could do there. Unfortunate, since it was to be my last class of the week with the 2C group. Oh well. Still, the prospect of watching a soccer match was exciting and I was looking forward to it.

Despite the scheduled start time of 2pm, the game didn’t actually get underway until 3:30. That’s Africa time for you. Despite facing off against a school from farther away, we all went to neighbouring Mawella Secondary as they have the only soccer pitch in the area, so we had our students, the students from the opposing school and the Mawella students all around the sidelines to cheer. The field was amusing at first glance (to me, at least). It was sloped in both directions such that the far right corner was the lowest point and a cornfield marked the boundary on one side. Still, it was a beautiful setting with nature all around, and if Kilimanjaro hadn’t been covered in clouds, the sight would have been that much more splendid.

There were two spectacles on view today. One was the soccer match – the other was me. As I sat down on the sidelines to watch the match, the local elementary school children who had come to the match sat down to watch me. It was a bit bizarre as they rarely watched the game at all, instead keeping their eyes fixed on me, how I was reacting and what I was saying.

The match was good, the Mangi Sabas team was strong, and they won 4-2. At each goal, the cheering girls would swarm the field, whooping it up. They would then return and chant and taunt the girls on the opposing side. It was all very good-natured, even when it continued pack-like at half-time. After the whistle was blown at full time, the masses of girls swarmed onto to the field again to continue their chanting and taunting. I was watching it all bemusedly when suddenly, like out of a medieval-era movie and their packs of archers, a volley of sticks went up from one of the packs of girls, aimed at the other pack. Immediately, the other pack launched their own volley and suddenly there were sticks flying everywhere. I couldn’t believe it! “Hey! Don’t throw sticks!” I called out in vain.

It was too late. Things had already disintegrated into a crazy crowd mentality. It swarmed and moved to the far end of the field as I watched in disbelief, seemed to calm down, and then flared up again. During this, as I was trying to think of what to do as a simple foreigner and guest teacher who speaks no Swahili, I saw out of the corner of my eye the teachers from Mangi Sabas leaving to go home, completely unconcerned and disinterested. I was dumbstruck. “What kind of teachers are you?!” was all I could think. What very, very little respect I had for them up until that point (given their actions at the school) evaporated as they walked off the field. They don’t care at all about the kids. Teaching is just a paycheque to them – one that they try to get with the minimum amount of work possible.

Fortunately, turning back to the fray, I saw the one teacher from our school who was acting as coach walking across the field towards me. He came up to me and asked me what he thought we should do. He’s a young guy, early twenties, and brand new to teaching (he doesn’t even have a diploma as he’s just a Form VI graduate and temporary teacher), but a pretty decent guy. I told him that we should go and see what was happening and at least make sure our students were okay. By the time we got over there, things were cooling off and some of the students from the other school were heading home. Some of our students also needed to go in the same direction but were having trouble doing that. The other kids, apparently, were hiding in the corn waiting to ambush. So the coach told the kids who needed to go that way to take a roundabout route home and eventually we rounded up all the others and went home ourselves. It was an unfortunate end to a nice afternoon, and I’m still in shock at the behaviour of the other teachers at my school.